Posted
by
Soulskillon Friday March 01, 2013 @02:04PM
from the three!-three-radiation-belts!-ah-ah-ah! dept.

An anonymous reader sends word that NASA scientists using the Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope (REPT) about the Van Allen Probes have discovered a third radiation belt surrounding Earth. Scientists have been aware of the Van Allen radiation belts since the 1950s, but it was thought that there were only two of them. The probes were sent up to simply map the belts in fine detail; the discovery of a third belt was a complete surprise. Deputy mission scientist Shri Kanekal said, "By the fifth day REPT was on, we could plot out our observations and watch the formation of a third radiation belt. We started wondering if there was something wrong with our instruments. We checked everything, but there was nothing wrong with them. The third belt persisted beautifully, day after day, week after week, for four weeks." Part of the reason they caught a glimpse of this belt was that they turned the REPT on early, so it would overlap with another probe that had reached end-of-life and was about to de-orbit. If they hadn't decided to do so, or if the REPT hadn't worked perfectly, we still might be in the dark about a third Van Allen belt.

If this is somehow related to Global Warming, it is entirely possible that the belt has formed recently and could continue to intensify. Regardless of it's origins, it could mean additional protection for earth and spectacular auroras.

Please explain how any warming of the Earth's atmosphere could be related to the radiation belts that are produced, presumably, by our magnetic field, which has no connection to how warm or cold the air is. I know you're trolling but I could use the LOL's when you try to explain that.

It was just discovered. It has most likely been there for a long, long time. Most likely since long before mammals arrived.

The third belt has not always been there, nor is it there now. It was blasted away by a solar shock wave a few weeks after they noticed it. The guess is that a solar shock wave is what created it in the first place, too.

This was more funny when I read it as a reply to the "Old Man Earth..." comment above it. I thought you were carrying on the old-man funny-ness, with "coronal mass ejections" implying an old man spending too much time on the toilet. And the "solar wind" a reference to him farting. Now I realize you were serious, that's too bad. And no, I am not 10 years old, I merely think like one.

"Since the beginning of the Obama presidency, radiation around the Earth has actually increased. So much for the Liberal Green Agenda from this Environmentalist-In-Chief. Can our planet survive four more years of this, or Is it finally time for Obama to go? You decide."

And even when we do [wikipedia.org], the radiation belt created doesn't last long. Five years in the case of the Starfish Prime artificial belt. Probably because the belt isn't caused by or reinforced by solar particle flux, so the trapped particles leak over time.

While briefly on the topic of high-altitude nuclear detonations, check out this photo of the ground illumination from the 3.8MT Hardtack Teak [wikipedia.org] shot, 77km (48mi) above. For comparison, Starfish Prime was 1.4MT at an altitude of 400km (250mi).

Not a "third belt" at all. A temporary "third concentration" within the Van Allen belt, yes. The lower concentration is blamed on cosmic ray neutron=>proton interactions, the upper concentration to atmospheric and solar electrons. The belt was already known to consist of some concentration of energetic particles from 250-20,000 km. Naturally that varies at various levels as incoming particles are pulled into the magnetosphere.